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The paper that first announced the double helical structure of DNA made Watson and Crick household names, earned them a share of a Nobel Prize and has since been cited 5,300 times. The entire article took up just a single page of A4 with one small illustration.

This is a prime example of how good science reporting does not necessarily equate to lengthy reporting. Long articles are occasionally necessary but they inevitably take considerable time and intellectual energy to write, review and comprehend. As scientists are some of the most time-poor members of society, a cultural shift towards writing more concise articles (without compromising methodological detail) would be to everyone’s benefit.

F1000Research encourages the publication of brief research communications in the form of Research Notes. This recently indexed article by Liu et al. is an example of how short Research Notes can be and how promptly they can be reviewed (in this case under a week). The authors only needed a few hundred words and one composite figure to describe their finding that capsaicin (the fiery constituent in chillies) can inhibit excessive vascular smooth muscle growth, a problem that often occurs after vascular surgery. There was little need for the report to include an exhaustive introduction and discussion for this provisional in vitro study, and so their report on the effects of this spicy compound could be kept short and sweet.

Further (short) reading: Stephen Krashen (2012). A Short Paper Proposing That We Need to Write Shorter Papers.